Cloudflare has said the sweeping internet breakdown seen on Tuesday came from a fault inside its own system rather than an external attack.
The issue pushed major platforms offline for a time, with X, OpenAI, Canva and Spotify among the companies hit. Several leading Nigerian newsrooms, including TheCable, Premium Times, Nairametrics, Punch and The Nation, were also affected.
Dane Knecht, the firm’s chief technology officer, offered an apology and accepted responsibility. He said a hidden flaw in a core service linked to Cloudflare’s bot-mitigation tools collapsed after a routine configuration change.
The failure weakened traffic across the company’s network and caused significant disruption for organisations that depend on its services.
Knecht described the delay in restoring operations as unacceptable and said the team had begun work to ensure the problem does not return.
Traffic through the network was largely restored by mid-afternoon, though extra effort went into bringing back the control systems used by customers to manage their settings.
He added that Cloudflare would release a full review of the incident, outlining what failed and the steps being taken to strengthen the network.
